Abstract:
Recent research on participatory forest management (PFM) in the
global south has highlighted the existence of a widespread
“implementation gap” between the ambitious intent enshrined in
legislation and the often partial, disappointing rollout of devolved
forest governance on the ground. Here, through an ethnographic case
study of forest officers (FOs) in Kenya, we draw on a framework of
critical institutionalism to examine how key meso-level actors, or
“interface bureaucrats,” negotiate and challenge this implementation
gap in everyday forest governance. We go beyond consideration of
institutional bricolage in isolation or as an aggregate category, to
analyze how bricolage as aggregation, alteration, and/or articulation is
variously driven, shaped, and constrained by FOs’ multiple accountabilities
and agency. Our analysis highlights the locally specific,
contingent, and mutually reinforcing nature of accountability, agency
and bricolage, and their explanatory power in relation to the
performance and nature of “actually existing” PFM.
